The Shape of Space

A Story by kealan

To speed up his family plans, Aden Egan agrees to transport a range of creatures across an infamously dangerous route.

I'm just a winin' boy, don't deny my name.

Winin' Boy Blues. Jelly Roll Morton.

“It doesn't matter how hard you try,” said the small, stocky foreman. “They'll never forgive you for turning them down.”

The vast, open-top warehouse was a mass of machine vibrations, the air filled with the sweet scent of sawdust. Aden Egan was sitting under the skeleton of a long-abandoned crane, a chubby yet gaunt figure with cat-green eyes and short, scruffy black hair.

“Well, I don't know what they expect me to do,” he said. “Lorraine would kill me if I took anything above a nine. And you know what she's like........”

A stack of transparent boxes tilted over the edge of a loading platform and a couple of small moans escaped through the many breathing holes.

“Did you even tell her about it?” asked the foreman, waving to a brightly suited woman in the distant north of the enormous facility.

“No,” said Aden, leaning back in the low, steel bench.

He had made the decision not to tell Lorraine about the offer he had received last night; she would only worry.

“I don't know why I didn't tell her,” he said, mostly to himself. The foreman uttered a command into the transmitter, then took a seat beside his colleague.

“I think I know,” he said, “it's because you're afraid she might say 'go for it.'”

Aden thought about replying defensively, then realized he didn't have the energy.

“Could be,” he said.

The friendly foreman said, “That's nothing to be ashamed about, the higher routes are scary s**t. I know I wouldn't have taken it.”

He rose and paced forward a few metres to a column of crates where two young men in yellow suits were trying to fix the water conduit of a small fox enclosure. Aden studied his boss in detail: malnourished, scruffy, listless, resigned. Is this where he was headed? Was dying such a terrible alternative.

However, the threat wasn't from death itself. The craft from the higher routes had not crashed or exploded; they had simply vanished, and Lorraine had said time and time again that she simply couldn't cope with a disappearance. That left him with an endless schedule of transits along the lowest, safest lanes, with menial pay and virtually no perks.

The disdain he felt toward his job always gave him a sense of wry dissolution. He was aware that just a few generations ago, most people would've done anything for a chance to go into space, and all Aden seemed to do is try and get out of it.

He hated going up there, but waking up every morning knowing he would die as a meaningless consumer without a legacy literally terrified him.

“I don't know why I turned it down,” he said aloud. The foreman, who was on his way back from the brief interaction with the staff, said, “You're still thinking about it, aren't you?”

Aden stopped biting his lip long enough to ask, “how much of the Adapa has been loaded?”

The foreman, smiling apprehensively, answered, “less than 10%.”

Aden stood up. “I don't know what to do....” but he was already walking toward the Logistics Centre.

Aden had taken the offer, a route which brought him in direct contact with one of the highest ranking lanes, the no.67. It was the last known whereabouts of several missing vessels, crew included. Yet despite the grim link to the lane, he had begged for the opportunity after 'coming to his senses' during the chat in the warehouse earlier that day.

However, when it was granted, Aden had been stung with anxiety. The salary he would earn from this journey would shorten the timeline of their family plans by nearly fourteen months, and the prospect of this thrilled him. But now that it had been granted, those numbers appeared truly sinister for the first time.

He was glad he had decided to keep it from Lorraine, though he didn't look forward to explaining himself when he got back, regardless of new-found riches. Also, the guilt he felt about taking Oger along with him was immense, but the little Scottish terrier hadn't missed a transit in the two years since they'd picked him up from the rescue centre. And with such an ominous journey, the upbeat mutt would be a distraction at least.

Aden was also relieved that Lorraine detested goodbyes.

On the morning of every departure she always woke up early and wrote him a note, on hard paper, then left, waiting till he was airborne before returning. Today was no different; there was a piece of paper downstairs, resting on one of his bags. As always, he broke her rule and opened it and read there and then.

It was blank.

Aden assumed she had just forgotten to write it, but then he saw her little squiggly signature at the bottom. There was something else there as well; when he squinted he could just make out three tiny words.

Wait for it.

Floating high above the industrial section, in a vacuum-proof transparent cable-car, Aden Egan watched towns and cities shrink, countries meld into anonymous globs of green.

Despite the murmurs of the other workers, he enjoyed the fresh elevation through the clouds and up past the atmosphere. He read Lorraine's letter again just as the full sphere of the Earth manifested, but only the signature and those three little words were visible.

The full-dark of space drifted around the naked cable-car, and UNISS came into view; a complex hexagon with the industrial complex on the murky side and the commercial/private housing facilities on the sun-facing platform. When the two nippled domes came into view it always made Aden smile childishly, and it gave him some comfort to overhear the men in the cable-car make crude jokes and comparisons. However, soon the bulking structure filled up the sky and the air grew thick and calculating inside the small vehicle.

The dock was steady and time in the airlock was short, though it did have its customary stench of old plastic, and Aden was glad to step into the UNISS proper.

Inside, it was loud and dense. The wide, arced tunnels carried 10,000 voices. The few paths leading to the attendant's lift seemed longer than the last time he had been here, which was only two and half months ago.

Just before he stepped into the tall, sloping elevator, the enormity of the situation gave him dark heart pains. For a second, he thought about turning back and this hesitation came as a shock; he had no idea he had been afraid.

Inside the lift, the four plain, grey walls put him in a daze until the click of the opening door woke him. A shine swam into the lift from the attendant's centre; Aden had forgotten how beautiful the view was from here.

Only a portion of the Earth could be seen, but the glint of the sun gave the planet a superb aura. Aden pulled out the note again.

At first it looked no different, but when he held it up for scrutiny, he could see very faint traces of other words at the top of the page. He smiled.

The 'magic pen' obsession, had been one of the components of Lorraine's 'vintage phase' a few years back. The forming note would take a while yet, and he was surprised to find himself giddy. The door to the attendant's centre opened up and two women arrived in: one he didn't recognise, but the other........

“Debbie?” he said.

Debbie looked him over, and the expression clearly showed remembrance.

“Sorry,” she said. “I don't think I know you.” Her eyes screamed for him to play along. This happened a lot with former residents of the care-home.

“Oh, you don't really,” said Aden, relaxing his face. “I think we met once or twice at one of the training centres.”

“Oh right,” she said. “Good to see you again.”

She turned her attention to the sight out the ceiling-high bay-window. Once her friend had turned as well and was immersed in the view, Debbie craned her head back to where Aden was now sitting and gave a thin-lipped smile that rang with thanks, then returned her focus to her friend.

Aden understood the embarrassment, but it seemed none of his former house-mates wanted to acknowledge him, even though they seemed perfectly fine recognising each other in the most public of places. It was only him, it was always him.

F**k's sake, he thought, why is it always me?

He would find out the answer to that soon enough, much to his disturbance.

The interior of the Adapa was the same as all other industrial craft: four wide tunnels per floor, the colour of worn tinfoil, with motion sensor lighting in the high ceilings. Little lifts were peppered everywhere.

Each level contained the different ingredients needed for the full terraformation of a world: flora, fauna, and tech. The plants were stocked at the bottom, most in cold-containers with the exception of breeding specimens who roamed free in their enclosures.

The animals were housed on the highest level alongside the lifeboats (Aden had heard an exhaustive number of jokes involving elephants in escape pods), and the tech was stored in the middle section with the viewing station, the monitors, and the fairly comfortable attendant's private section.

Aden went there first to drop off his bags, and was annoyed " as he always was " by the condition in which it had been left in by the previous attendant. It took him nearly half an hour to clean up the dorm alone, and when he got a look at the leisure room he thought about getting on the Coms to complain, but it wouldn’t have made a difference.

Instead, he moped about, bouncing electric mops to the floor, clearing packages and scraps of hard-paper into a clear sack. Afterwards, he unpacked his clothes and various equipments then left to examine the leisure room in detail.

The luminous grey room had a low ceiling and seemed to extend beyond visibility. The entire west wall was transparent like the cable-cars and UNISS herself, but the craft was docked in the undersection of the floating city so the broad view was just a platform of machinery. Aden stood in the neat doorway, sniffing at the mild chemical scents that characterised the Adapa be it filthy or pristine. He was on his way there when the signature brunk of a communication sounded out in the adjoining command centre.

He was hoping it was Lorraine but knew it was unlikely; the note would be the only dialogue between them until he re-entered the Sol System. When Aden reached the cc he was alarmed by the drastic changes.

Half of the room was occupied by a sheet of small white screens. Each little box had an image; some were of the more exotic and fragile specimens; others were generic views of the substantial artificial ecosystems, three in all, representing their planets of origin. Workers roamed about the images wheeling animals and plants in crates of all sizes. Aden flicked the switch on the visuals.

“Hi Aden, I've been asked to go through an M31 check-list with you because you haven't carried live-stock in over 12 months.”

The foreman was back in his office, his expression listless. Charts and E-sheets dotted the desk around him. Aden sat down sideways in the awkward, short-backed seat before the large communication screen.

“Go on,” he said.

“Right. Q1-”

“How long's this going to take?”

His boss looked up from the glimmering sheet. “About half an hour. Q1: Where is the perimeter stock valve located?”

Aden was clueless for a moment. He knew where it was; he could even see it in his mind's eye, but the description eluded him. Typical, he thought, any attendant with my flight hours would be able to answer a basic question like this robotically. Not me, though. I'm not that.

Finally, he managed to croak out an answer. The man on the screen continued, indifferent to the pause. “If the atmosphere of a level fails, how long do you wait before retrieving untainted stock.”

“Ninety minutes,” said Aden robotically. Oger came strolling into the cc after preliminary searches of the leisure room. He halted a few feet from where Aden was sitting, and rested on his haunches, licking his chops.

“If the solar chamber malfunctions,” said the foreman, “how many levels are terminated?”

Aden sighed and rolled his eyes. The dog grinned his appreciation of the joke, winked once, and came slinking over.

“The level of malfunction,” said Aden, “and the level above.”

“What is the secondary protocol to a chasm failure?”

Aden lay a hand flat on the dome of his shaved head and yawned, wrecked as always. The dog's head came to rest on his lap, and Aden scratched him gently on the skull, while the questionnaire continued.

After answering all the questions correctly, he endured a jovial lecture concerning the astronaut ghosts of route 67 and he was glad when the screen finally went blank. The couriers and technicians had vacated the screens as well. Fidgeting plants and stirring animals remained, along with 9 wide-scoped views of the enormous enclosure, one for each level.

A fight had already broken out between two horned ginnicks. Aden watched for some time with interest then turned his attention to the isolated creatures on the smaller screens. The majority were asleep, but the breeding members roamed and jostled and played inside the cubed containers. Aden studied the screens with growing intrigue.

A few minutes in he registered how quiet it was; the workers had dispersed from the exterior fueling conduit. It was a glorious return to familiar isolation: the calm hum of the chasm, the rotary coils turning quietly, and the laid-back banter of his own heartbeat. He knew that soon he would experience the most intense aloneness humanly possible.

With a broad, natural smile, he scooped the shimmering electric sheet from the wide surface beneath the wall of screens, and started the process of departure.

Part Two

To all of my architects let me be traitor.

Now let me say I myself gave the order

To sleep and to search and to destroy.

Into this furnace I ask you now to venture.

The Old Revolution. Leonard Cohen.

Perilunar traffic was congested as always. Aden took the time to inspect the Adapa once more, this time venturing deep into the vessel.

The lift outside the command centre was omnidirectional, one of a kind in the craft. He travelled for about thirty seconds horizontally, and then tapped the node to rise. When he stepped out, the heat in the long, curving tunnel surprised him. This floor would usually be filled with stacks of containers, dark and silent. Now it was bright-lit and, despite the barriers of the containers, the air was thick with heavy, tropical scents. Aden strolled to the left, along a thin hallway, with pellucid walls on either side.

Some of the sights were bland: stalls filled with wriggling mud, pools of water standing upright, various faceless swimmers dashing around, generic cryo-tanks with lids closed. However, the further toward the end of the lengthy walkway, the more fascinating the beings became.

A few cubes before the lift at the far end he came upon two adult tigers already mating. When the male saw him come into view his claws gripped the female, tight. He then dismounted and slinked a few feet toward the invisible divider. The barrier was soundproof but Aden was sure he could feel the vibrations from the deep growls. The tiger moved closer, his emerald eyes beaming fiercely. Another few steps brought him up to the blockade and he stood there, shoulders heaving, sniffing the artificial material. Aden stepped forward, crouched down, and leaned over.

He could see himself reflected in the eyes of the beast, and it sent him into a trance.

The tiger broke the daze with a swift swipe of his claws, and the agility of the action sent Aden reeling back onto the hot floor. For a second the technology of the barricade seemed flimsy and primitive. When he got to his feet his hand was to his chest, trying to lull his heart back to a casual rhythm.

Just as he was starting to relax, he saw movement in the corner of his eye, something small and white, scurrying. He chest jumped with the fright and continued to stammer violently even after he realized it was just Lorraine's note, blowing in the slight breeze of the fans. He picked it up and opened it.

Two words were visible now, and their implication was grim. Aside from the wait for it at the bottom and her miniature signature, the only other words on the page read,

I'm sorry

With just two words, his heart dropped to his feet and lay there, pulsing in the cold puddles of flesh.

Fatigued beyond reason, Aden couldn't even stay awake long enough to enjoy the sight of Jupiter. Instead, he ate a large meal, watching one of the movies on the hardboard, and retired to his dorm to sleep. He had pleasant dreams for the first time in ages. Slow, blissful premonitions of life as part of a registered family: public recognition, superior living conditions, total freedom of knowledge.......everything he and Lorraine had been working so hard for since they were 15 years old " took turns in the scope of the dream.

He was woken brutally by the ringing of a minor alarm. Cursing aloud the nature of his life, he stalked toward the cc. The feeding levers were 30 minutes overdue. Yawning dismally, he plunged down the directive and then made his way, weak and sleepy, back to his dorm. This time when he slept there were only vague shadows of tigers, growling threats in his ear.

However, in less than three hours, Aden Egan would experience many similar horrors, in person. For he had not only fed the plants and animals; he had also inadvertently clipped the cache on the time-delay release pattern. And by a weird cosmic coincidence, all the wild beasts and agile phototropes would release at the exact moment the Adapa entered the 67 route.

I'm sorry, I didn't

No matter what way he looked at it, there didn't seem to be a good way for that phrase to finish. After initial attempts at decryption, he gave up and leaned back angrily in the uncomfortable chair. The hard back crunched his spine, on top of the eery note, and all he could think was: this only happens to me. What the f**k did I do in a past life to deserve this? I must've been Wayne Gacy or something.

Seeking distraction, he decided on a long walk throughout the craft. He had long-ago decided on a career in the arts alongside Lorraine, but there was a time when Aden considered mechanics. One look at the entry level questionnaire had made the choice for him, though. But he still admired the intricate workings surrounding the enormous 'open' enclosures. That's where he headed.

He thought he heard a faint crackling noise in the slim vents of the lift, but assumed it was just the quiet chaos of the chasm.

When the small door whooshed open, the smells and sounds of an alien jungle flooded into the lift. Rich, dark perfume and the glistering billow of leaves from weird trees. Aden was shocked; the dome surrounding the enclosure should have stifled the scents and sounds. The towering, multi-coloured forest seemed barren, save for the multi-coloured eyes glaring from various thickets.

Close to where Aden was standing, a goggler of googanies moved about, their glistening feelers searching the soil for sustenance. Aden strolled around the perimeter of the humongous clear bubble, scouting the hedges and clearings, but soon realized the animals were aware of his presence and had vanished accordingly. He turned back toward the lift.

The second enclosure was equally uneventful on account of synthetic night. The third enclosure, however, was fantastic; an artificial lake with thousands of water-dwellers from algae to blue whales. It was basically an enormous aquarium. A thick feeding nozzle made a nice swing-bench to sit on while he watched the lobsters and manta rays and sharks and jack mackerel.

Aden was lost in the sights when the deep, resounding blunk rung out from the contact-point by the lift. When he got up to the cc there was a proximity beacon glowing on one of the nodules. He had checked through the schedule three times and was certain the first two days on the 67 were vacant save the Adapa.

Before he could analyse the script presently loading on the e-sheet, the communication screen lit up and the scene it displayed was something Aden Egan would never forget.

If not for the subtle conditioning of his people from birth, the sight of the exo-terran would have likely caused a serious medical episode.

Aden only froze.

With dark almond eyes, the being gleamed through the screen, unblinking. Two small slits for nostrils and a rue, lipless mouth. The grey form rocked its head of muscle and a second being came into view; an ordinary man looking alarmed. There was a bunch of old hard-sheets in his hand. The screen went blank.

There were tears of shock and disbelief streaming down Aden's face as he sat there, breathless and limp, his bottom lip trembling. Thoughts would not form. The outrageous impression of the event was all that could be sensed. The intense image squeezed his heart, tighter, tighter... and it took a long, long time for a coherent notion to form and it was: this can't be happening not here not now not to...to...WHY.....F*****G.....ME!

When he finally managed to calm himself down and reach for the directive, his arm fell to his lap from residual panic. There were pins and needles in his skull. He went to reach again, but stopped himself. A little niggling notion told him to inspect the passing craft first.

On the display, a vehicle was accelerating away at roughly ten thousand kilometres a second. Despite severe altercations the craft was unmistakably terran; a retired shuttle from the early 21^st century. Before he could centre and examine the image, the craft simply disappeared.

Amazed to the point of hysteria, he chose not to lose his mind until he examined the e-sheet, but it never arrived. This was almost standard practice; with all the cut-backs and take-overs down the years some of the equipment was basically useless

Without breathing, he set about about mulling over the computer data, and was shocked to find himself arguing with the emotion-recognition software. A number of formal e-sheets went skimming across the silver-grey pad in his hand. And then, incredibly, a protocol he had never heard of was invoked.

With a swoosh the door to his private dorm slid aside and remained open. Just out of earshot, the much larger doors which lead to the adjacent corridor and the rest of the craft, slid open also.

Ping!

He never heard such a noise in the craft before.

Ping!

He turned toward the sound, scowering the surface of the control panel. Each node glinted in corrected colour.

Ping! It was coming from the right. He turned.

The huge board of compact screens were sprouting red pimples within the columns. Aden leaned in for a better look at one of the afflicted squares.

In corridor 58, a kangaroo was being savaged by two wolves. The fight was all ready over; the kangaroo's throat had been torn so badly he was nearly decapitated, yet he gave out slow kicks as the last of life drained from his neck.

Ping!

A few squares down, the image showed a cube door opening and a horse head emerge cautiously while an ostrich fluttered by looking busy. Every time a Ping! rang out, another dorm opened up.

On they went, PingPingPingPingPing filling the screens with blood-red beads until the board was covered in electric acne and the noise morphed into one long Piiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing.....

Aden snapped his neck to the doorway.

Nothing yet, though the nearest dorm was less than a five minute walk for a competent bi-ped. He rushed over there and tried to pry the door across manually. It was futile. Every door in the Adapa weighed a ridiculous amount, and he knew even before his effort that it wouldn't budge.

The new-found situation shot through his mind, sending fresh sparks of terror throughout his body. Frantic, making little giggling noises of panic, he darted around the cc looking for........

A weapon! Oh my God, he thought, has it come to that already?

The patter of claws on the metallic surface of the corridor told him that it was.

In a moment of amazing bravery he ran away.

Oger hurried after him, glancing back wearily.

Inside the attendant's private dorm, the siren of terror inside Aden's head ceased for a moment. The slim doorway wouldn't close and the clack-clack-clack continued. He didn't dare close his eyes, though he wished he could blink his whole head safely shut. The cold, cutting creature neared and the room filled with a thick, woody aroma. Oger backed into the corner, his usually warm eyes filled with abject hostility. The bear could smell them both; he was growling before he even stomped into the cc. Aden couldn't bring himself to look, the bear had to actually surpass the cc and come into the room before Aden managed a reaction.

The lumbering animal had eyes wide and white. Aden was never one for thinking on his feet, but in that second, when the towering growl shook his bones, a prehistoric need to exist kicked in, and he flung himself to the floor with incredible agility.

The 'weapon' he would use to defend himself turned out to be a thin graphene pole from the supporting structure of the bed. It made a whipping sound when he swung it, not at the bear personally, but the air above his own head, as a relative show of force.

It worked. The bear wasn't afraid, only distracted, and it was enough for Aden and the dog to slide along the opposite wall and out the door.

The cc was surprisingly empty but Aden knew it couldn't last long. None of the usual failsafe patterns even registered, and the entire communication platform was blank. A quick check on the wall of screens showed that a merciful number of animals had been too weary or stupid to leave their dorms. And then he saw it: the enclosure.

All three of them, in fact, were due to detach upon landing and the technology involved seemed to have left them unaffected. The long, narrow arc that ran the length of the huge transparent sphere remained vacant, only the shadows of trees brushed against the metallic walkway. He made his way there, Oger by his side.

Aden peeked from the corner, pointing a finger behind him, to still the waiting dog.

By fate or fortune, the coast was clear. The predators seemed engaged in something at the far end of the tunnel, out of view. The lift was a few feet away. The only obstacle was a lone koala, twitching, half engulfed by the gaping jaws of a snake. In long sweeps of his feet, Aden carried Oger down the corridor, past the feeding snake, and into the lift.

Could they wait it out here? No.

Once inside the safety of the static lift, it seemed like a good idea to stay but Aden knew the nearest planetary system was 12 hours away. Besides, after what he had seen on the screen not long ago, the activation of the release pattern was hardly accidental. This realization chilled his spine. It meant that he was not supposed to make it home.

A rustling beneath the lift made Oger yap out a few high barks. Aden silenced him. The sound from below was rising. The heating vents were too small for any credible threat other than the Cygnus Weed plant, a mobile, sentient carnivore. But Aden was sure this rare specimen would remain in its dorm where the customised light would continue to sustain it. But nothing was definite, nothing was permanent. Sweating, Aden dabbed the nodule to ascend.

He would have to make it to one of the secondary contact points and ring for help. The sleep section was seven levels up, on the far side of the water enclosure. There was also a basic communications system nearby. The lift there took less than ten seconds. This time there was no rustling noise.

The door clicked open and Aden cringed at the noise, peeking. Everything on this level was occupied as well by whatever was happening on the north end of the craft. No doubt a bloodbath. As long as it stayed down there, it was all right with Aden. Between nerves and fear, he could only deal with the immediate vicinity and the plan. Until the tiger.

Aden was scurrying along the huge wall of glistening water, little Oger jogging by his side, when the screeches and growls began.

Instinctively, both man and dog began to run. The screams were nearing behind him, and then he saw the shadows of many forms racing toward him from the front. With stabbing throbs of his heart, trembling, he spotted the guiding dents that lined the barrier of the enclosure, and rushed over.

Before he had a chance to leave the ground, the oncoming stampede came into view. A tiger and a lamb running side by side, away from something. Behind them lay the sprinting rodents and other smaller animals. And behind them......

Aden didn't wait to find out. He picked up Oger and stepped up onto the first cleft. The dog was struggling. The quick click-clack of approaching hooves, paws and claws intensified. On the second cleft up Oger tried to leap, suicidally, back to the ground. The dog's efforts were wasting time considerably, and when Aden saw the enormous, savage eyes of the alien plant come into view, he climbed onto the third step, and, in a moment of desperate self-concern, threw the dog to the floor.

The slim panel which acted as a roof to the vast artificial lake was never meant for human feet.

Without looking down, Aden scampered across the vibrating platform, hearing the terrible croaks of his pet in the background as the plant consumed him. He'd just have to hope the naturally vicious organism wasn't waiting for him on the other side.

A giant shadow loomed below his feet and Aden winced. Nothing broke the surface. When he finally reached the other side and looked down, the foreign weed had laid a carpet of thick stalks and leaves that covered the entire floor. Racing his brain, Aden tried to remember the individual qualities of the plant, anything that would give him an advantage, but his mind was a tornado at that time.

Out of options, knowing he couldn't stay atop the glistering waters for long, he turned around and began to descend the clefts, gazing back and fourth. Nothing stirred. At the bottom of the ladder the pungent smell of the plant filled his nostrils, a heady phototropic scent. He thought about tipping his toe to the huge, minutely moving plant, but decided against it. He had no way of knowing if the plant would register his presence. Instead, he would have to make a break for it.

The secondary communication point was within sight; a quick sprint to the corner. In a flash, he darted.

The hiss of flesh from his feet was second only to the agony he felt once he came into contact with the plant. It seemed to stiffen beneath him. Raw and burning, Aden staggered across the hostile living carpet, trying to stay upright. He failed and fell and put his hands out to shield his fall. Both hands landed flat on the meat of the plant and were stung accordingly. He let out a fierce wail of pain but quickly picked himself up and darted from the green walkway.

Once back on the cold craft material, he limped around the corner. A peacock was standing outside the entrance to one of the sleeping dorms. Aden dismissed it and threw himself onto the wall-hung communicator. The peacock fluttered in reply but stayed where it was.

“This is Aden Egan from the Adapa,” he said, desperately watching the screen. He didn't need to say it again; a clerk from the Beijing operations centre came on the screen. On seeing Aden's unkempt and terrified demeanour, she sat forward in the chair.

“What's happened?” she asked in a northern England accent.

“The animals are out,” Aden gasped, forgetting all formalities. Something squawked down the corridor. “Oh holy f**k,” he said, almost crying with fear. “I need help, one of the exo-terran plants is roaming free and it's eating everything.”

“Okay,” said the clerk, “stay calm, we're analysing the craft now....” her eyes were scanning something just to the left of view. “Can you tell me what happened?” she asked.

Out of the corner of his eye, Aden saw one of the large bulky stalks bulge and relax, bulge and relax......digesting.....

“Mr. Egan, can you tell me what happened?”

Aden thought back and for the first time since de-containment, the image of the extra-terrestrial came fourth. Aden's legs weakened, his mouth a trembling O.

“I.........can't remember...right now I need help.”

The corporate worker was eager to assist. “Okay, I see it. You need to make your way to proof sect 7. Protocol 31 has been issued; you have 12 minutes.”

Aden's eyes glazed over as he studied the calm, almost bored, employee announce his certain death.

“H-How do you expect me to get up there, with a dozen ecosystems on the prowl?”

There was no anger, just dread, disbelief. He began to cry.

“Why is it always f*****g ME!?” He roared at her. The clerk only glared back, unblinking.

“I'm sorry,” she said without feeling. “I'd suggest you try.”

Amazingly, the screen went blank.

Aden kicked the peacock in the face.

I'm sorry I didn't tell

Despite the overwhelming anxiety of the situation, Aden still felt distressed when he read the scribble. It was a dangerous decision to read it where he was, but since the call, anger had taken over. And anger made him strong.

The pain in his hands and feet had mellowed to a weird tingling he had never felt before that gave him an odd sense of confidence. Even when he saw that the tunnel was flooded in thick, belching stalks, he was undeterred. He simply straightened up, as if in preparation for a race, and ran.

Aden Egan was running so fast he felt like a villain in a Japanese animation, yet he felt nothing. However, by the time he reached the far end of the corridor he was screaming without realizing it. And when he checked the condition of his soles he saw they were stripped to charred tendons, sticky and burning. There was no time to assess the damage; the pulsing flesh of the plant rose a few feet into the air, recoiling. Unable to breath, bloody, Aden staggered through the doors to the nearest sleeping dorm.

It was eerily silent inside. The stink of death was thick in the air. Aden limped on his stumps toward the bed. Any second now that killing plant could burst through the doors, yet Aden could only think of the note. There were quite a few more words there now, but before he had a chance to read them, something caught his attention.

Slowly, he rotated in the bed and was horrified by what he saw. The tiger was dead, only its skin remained. There were globs of snagged flesh on the fangs of the animal and Aden knew the poor thing had been sucked dry, like a fly, through its mouth. Aden shivered in the bed, bitter and disabled.

And then he remembered the time. Deflated and in agony, he rose unsteadily and made his way to the dorm door. Thick green pipes of plant-meat still lined the floor, now steaming, stewing up the air in both directions. He had no choice.

It was then the booming voice erupted over the craft's network of speakers.

“Protocol Mars 77 release in nine minutes.”

Aden eyed the long stretch of certain pain, and turned away. Even if he made it to the end of the long corridor, chances were slim that the lift had been left intact by the plant, but what other choice was there?

An eccentric idea surfaced. For a while he could only glare but when the announcement stated there were eight minutes left before disintegration, he snapped out of his doubting trance. Still, was he afraid or desperate enough to go through with it?

He darted to the back-wall and slipped his finger across the panel. The wall slid aside to reveal a thin window and beyond that, the stark black of deep space.

Time outside would be short.

The approaching de-materialisation of organic material within the craft would only last a couple of seconds. In that short time, the millions of minuscule nozzles would unload a mix of nano-ants and anti-matter and just over a second later every living being on the Adapa will have vanished. Aden didn't plan to be among them.

“Of course I f*****g will be,” he said, grimacing, with Oger's lingering death-shrieks in his ear.

Going outside the craft wasn't the problem; he had done this more times than he could count, but the exterior release valve might not open after the destructive protocol. And if one didn't open, none of them would. They'd have no reason to; for there would be no signs of life in the craft.

Aden didn't have a choice; he suited up. The darkness beyond the window awaited. 30 seconds to go. Surrounded by alarms both in and outside his head, he waited by the air-lock, his finger trembling above the opening lever.

PART THREE

You can say the sun is shining if you really want to,

I can see the moon and it seems so clear,

You can take the road that takes you

to the stars now

I can take a road that'll see me through.

Road. Nick Drake

With 6 seconds left, hand gripping the guiding rail, head swamped in sweat inside the visor, Aden slammed down on the opening lever.

His legs went first; they swung out from beneath him and out towards the vacuum. The clenched hand brought him crashing against the inner frame of the air-lock just as the whole room began flashing red, signalling immanent de-materialization.

More resigned than brave, Aden caught hold of one of the exterior rails and yanked himself, upside down, out of the air-lock vicinity.

Silence.

The air-lock closed beneath him. There was only harsh rasps within the visor. And time....time...

There was distinct lightening below, the colour of many magic fires.

Aden struggled back down toward the air-lock.

It opened automatically and he fought his way back in and snapped it shut. Once the helmet had been taken off, a weird, dry smell filled his nose and stung his eyes, a clean aroma. The motionless, soundless quality of the air disturbed more than comforted him. Pain.

While putting the suit on he hadn't noticed the pain on the soles of his feet or the exposed underskin of his palms, but now that he had a second to gather himself, it shot back into awareness. He stumbled to the flimsy bed by the door and sat there, listening, feeling the heat on the covers left by the violent technology. After a moment of relative calm, he clawed his way up from the bed and fumbled to the dorm-door.

Peering through the viewing port, he saw that the large tubes of the plant had vanished. Nothing organic remained.

He tapped on the panel and stepped into the vacant corridor. Bare fumes lingered in both directions. A bony beep tapped its correspondence on the wall and Aden's eyes fluttered weirdly. He grappled the secondary communicator, but the console was broken. He would have to make his way back to the cc.

Naked flames at the bottom of his feet, Aden limped down the illuminated path, thinking, is this really over? Did I actually survive it? Me of all people?

No. Not yet. Not until he read that letter.

Despite the intense stinging in the base of his feet, Aden skulked clumsily toward the major cc. Each step sent stings into the nerves of his feet, but he stepped and fumbled his way forward.

The column of monitors were now neutral squares of grey. The wall-screen to the left of the controls was flashing from black to white and back again indicating an incoming call.

“Answer,” said Aden in a tiny, weak voice. The stubby-faced foreman came on the screen with a genuinely worried demeanour. There were three administrative-looking people " a woman and two men " standing around him.

“Oh thank God for that,” said the foreman, smiling, exhaling his relief.

“What happened?”

“The.....” Aden's mind exploded as the alien image once again manifested. He stuttered.

“I don't remember...” he took his eyes away from the screen. “I've been through a lot Adam, I can't believe I'm even alive.” His eyes narrowed back to the screen, his voice thick with potential tears.

“Why did this happen to me?” he whispered to the unreal images in his head.

“Well,” said Adam the foreman, tensing, “we've checked and reviewed the data intensely. Aden, at 3 minutes past 12 am Earth time, the time-delay release pattern was initiated.”

The silence that followed that sentence was like an atmospheric gasp. Aden's forehead became boiling hot with anger and he was just about to deflate the burden of rage onto the screen, but a memory fluttered through his brain.

Two nights ago, the overdue feeding......how tired was he?

“Aden that protocol is ancient. It hasn't been used in decades, and even then it was only used during experiments.........how did this happen?”

“Where is it? The release pattern?”

“It's in the secondary command centre.”

“On the parallel panel to the feeding delivery system?”

“Yeah.”

In a moment of self-destructive honesty, Aden said, “I did it.”

Shocked, the foreman said, “How the hell did you manage that?”

Aden knew the conversation was heading toward career-killing territory; he sat back in the chair, and began to undo the space-suit.

“I did this to myself,” he said. “I take full responsibility, and when I get home I'll take the punishment.” His hands were visibly shaking.

“I really just need to be alone now, can we talk later?”

A man at the back nodded. The foreman didn't see him, yet he still said, “No problem Aden, you'll reach Earth at 10.30 pm two days from now, the auto-pilot's filtered in the reserve pumps to speed up things. We'll talk tomorrow.”

Before hanging up, the foreman ogled the screen uneasily.

“Aden.........did you come across any craft on the 67?”

With marvellous indifference, Aden said, “No.”

Adam the foreman had to stop himself from sighing with relief. His under-study had handled it well.

“Ah, we had a report on one of our missing vessels, just thought you might've got a glance. No problem, get a good rest, I'll call again later.”

As soon as the screen went blank, Aden burst into tears. He wasn't even aware of the emotion. Still in a state of shock, the image of the humanoid made a circus of his brain.

But above all, there was glee. Not only did life exist elsewhere in the universe, but they were working, co-operating with humanity. Of course, there was still disease and war and famine, so maybe they weren't as benevolent as he'd hoped they would be. It would take a long time to really digest and realize the magnificence of what he'd witnessed. His recent survival took precedence. That and the note.

When he gathered himself from the crying outburst, he found the page in his pocket and unfolded it.

I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner, but

I'm already registered. A long time ago

I'm so sorry. It's complicated.

I love you.

Aden was vacant for a time. Felt nothing, saw nothing. Then raw understanding cut in and his glazed eyes dried to bleak dots. They had not been apart from each other for longer than a few hours, so it must have been before they got serious. This gave him some comfort, because there were ways of reversing the process. But still, he felt weak in that moment, yet the epiphany continued regardless.

It had been his own fault this whole time. When the bank refused to register him and Lorraine as a family on credit, his disgust lay in the system. And though the system was crude and cruel, many had made it work.

And the former residents of the car-home in which he grew up only ignored him because he had ignored them for the best part of his life. His habitual deflection of blame had formed a bubble of disarray around his life. But now the bubble had burst and the rays of insight were glinting through, unnerving but welcome.

Over the next few days there would be a lot of heart-cringing comprehensions and conclusions. Despite the gloomy state of his existence, he knew that things were different now. He felt truly in control of his life for the first time, and he'd never again ask why me?

He knew exactly why.

END